In preparation, Total has secured space on three new
Canadian oil export pipelines -- Enbridge Inc.’s Northern
Gateway, Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP’s Trans Mountain
expansion and TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL, said Andre Goffart, president and chief executive of Total E&P Canada Ltd.

“We can develop Fort Hills” and a proposed oil-sands mine
called Joslyn without upgrading, Goffart said today in a
telephone interview from Calgary. “For both projects, our
intention is to dilute the bitumen and send it into the market,
and we are taking positions on various pipelines.”

A decision whether to proceed with Fort Hills had been
scheduled for the end of the third quarter, Suncor (SU) Chief
Financial Officer Bart Demosky told investors at a conference in
New York on March 14. If built, its first phase would produce as
much as 164,000 barrels a day in 2017. Suncor owns a 40.8
percent stake in Fort Hills, Total owns 39.2 percent and Teck
Resources Ltd. owns 20 percent.

Goffart said an investment decision on the Joslyn project,
near Fort McMurray, Alberta, wouldn’t happen this year.

Results Encouraging

“We’re still working on optimization, and so far we’ve had
encouraging results, so we are very optimistic,” he said.
Joslyn is expected to produce 100,000 barrels a day starting in
2018. Total is the majority owner, with Suncor holding a 36.75-
percent stake.

Total expects to spend C$15 billion ($14.8 billion) on
energy projects in Canada through 2020 and to be producing
200,000 barrels of bitumen a day by then, Goffart said.

Suncor and Total announced yesterday they had canceled
plans to build the Voyageur upgrader, which had been intended to
convert heavy bitumen production from Fort Hills and Joslyn into
200,000 barrels a day of synthetic light oil. A rapid increase
in competing light oil production from U.S. shale basins eroded
the economics of the upgrader plans, the companies said.